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Executive and Legislative documents laid before the General Assembly of North-Carolina [1869; 1870]

t8G9-7(>.l DocPAnsNT No. 26. 13
General Assembly to eecnre to the prisoners the means of
breathing pure air, tlie denial of which is not supposed to be
implied in any judicial sentence to imprisonment. It also
requires that the mingling of the sexes shall not be allowed.
That the institutions of the State—penal, reformatory and
charitable—may not become centres of idleness and vice, that
the primal law which imposes labor on all should not there
tall entirely into desuetude, the Constitution also provides.
It guards the people against reckless, lavish expenditure, while
it demands that labor shall be imposed upon all that enjoj'
the benefactions of the State, and that they contribute all that
is in their power to their own support. This is a provisioji
that loise charity insists upon and such as the people approve
and commend to the legislators of the State, and which the
board also fully approve and believe alone to be consistent
with the best interest of all those who are interested in these
great duties of the State.
THE IDEA. IX PENAL INSTITUTIONS.
A very marked change has been made manifest in the pre-vailing
idea giving character to penal institutions since the
day when Howard sacrificed his life in attempting the refor-mation
of such institutions, or the calm, sweet voice of Mrs.
Fry was heard in the cells of the vicious and abandoned in
those receptacles for criminals in England. It is no longer
eimply to punish—no longer to vindicate the majesty and
severity of the law alone, but the idea is justly set forth as it
respects those of civilized lands where the gospel of " good
will to man" holds the sway—in the words of our fundamental
law, " that it is not only to satisfy justice, but also to reform
the offender." So fully is this in harmony with the spirit of
the age that in statute books of nearly every State in the
ITnion there may be found the declaration of this as the pur-pose
of their prison restraint. This idea was entertained and
embodied in the laws of some States soon after the war of

t8G9-7(>.l DocPAnsNT No. 26. 13
General Assembly to eecnre to the prisoners the means of
breathing pure air, tlie denial of which is not supposed to be
implied in any judicial sentence to imprisonment. It also
requires that the mingling of the sexes shall not be allowed.
That the institutions of the State—penal, reformatory and
charitable—may not become centres of idleness and vice, that
the primal law which imposes labor on all should not there
tall entirely into desuetude, the Constitution also provides.
It guards the people against reckless, lavish expenditure, while
it demands that labor shall be imposed upon all that enjoj'
the benefactions of the State, and that they contribute all that
is in their power to their own support. This is a provisioji
that loise charity insists upon and such as the people approve
and commend to the legislators of the State, and which the
board also fully approve and believe alone to be consistent
with the best interest of all those who are interested in these
great duties of the State.
THE IDEA. IX PENAL INSTITUTIONS.
A very marked change has been made manifest in the pre-vailing
idea giving character to penal institutions since the
day when Howard sacrificed his life in attempting the refor-mation
of such institutions, or the calm, sweet voice of Mrs.
Fry was heard in the cells of the vicious and abandoned in
those receptacles for criminals in England. It is no longer
eimply to punish—no longer to vindicate the majesty and
severity of the law alone, but the idea is justly set forth as it
respects those of civilized lands where the gospel of " good
will to man" holds the sway—in the words of our fundamental
law, " that it is not only to satisfy justice, but also to reform
the offender." So fully is this in harmony with the spirit of
the age that in statute books of nearly every State in the
ITnion there may be found the declaration of this as the pur-pose
of their prison restraint. This idea was entertained and
embodied in the laws of some States soon after the war of